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Hello Guys…. Just stumbled upon this gem. Great work you have here. The best part this is that it is no fan work, but is oriented towards teaching and activism. I want to learn about films and am going to visit often… Can you please try to have a section for “Recommendation of the week” that gives out the most obscure but fantastic films from around the world?

I’m not aware of any DVD being produced of this wonderful film — certainly not with English subtitles. There may be a French DVD, but so far I haven’t found it. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I can’t work out which “this film” you mean – probably my fault for not thinking enough about the structure of the site.

The standard sources for buying UK DVDs are Amazon and Play.com. Since many of the Black British films of the 1980s were funded by either the British Film Institute (look at the ‘filmstore’ part of the website) or Channel 4, you might want to start your search with them. I’ve just looked at Channel 4’s site and although they have material on their productions, they don’t have any purchase details. You could try searching the database at the DVD rental film site, LoveFilm – this will at least tell you if the film exists on DVD (several of them don’t). Other than that I can only suggest a general googling. There are some titles available elsewhere in Europe. Babylon for instance has only recently been released in the UK, even though it was available from Italy some time ago. Good luck!

I wanted to write and tell you about a new website for artists, musicians, fashion designers, and filmmakers: http://www.PutItOn.com. I’ve been using the site as an artist and have my work there, and am trying to support it because I believe in it. Basically, the site allows artists from all over the world to connect, display their portfolios, and sell their work (with NO commission taken!). The site gives artists a FREE gigabyte of space to showcase their portfolios, allows you to stream audio and video works, lets you create live personal broadcasts, and translates any writing into ten different languages. If you could take the time to visit the site, and if you like it too, let your readers know about it, and even sign up yourself or link to it on your site it would be greatly appreciated! We are trying to make a go of helping out artists everywhere and are trying to get the word out, so please help us out if you like the site after checking it out! Thank you!

My name is Abigail Huston and I am writing to tell you about the film Hold Me Tight, Let
Me Go
by Kim Longinotto. Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go will air nationally on
P.O.V. July 28th at 10 PM (please check your local listings).

PBS?s P.O.V. series is the longest-running showcase on television to
feature the work of America’s best contemporary-issue independent
filmmakers. P.O.V. is also a resource for national, regional and local
organizations, PBS stations, and teachers via our film lending library
and free materials include free facilitators’ guides, discussion
guides, lesson plans and multimedia resource lists produced in
conjunction with PBS Teachers, educational professionals, librarians,
issue-area experts, and advisory boards.

Here is a synopsis of the film:
Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go
by Kim Longinotto
Variety describes it as a film “mixing ferocity with tenderness,
delicacy with tenacity” ? exactly like the unusual school it explores.
In Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, one of Britain’s leading documentary
filmmakers takes a verité look at Oxford’s Mulberry Bush School for
emotionally disturbed children. Mulberry’s heroically forbearing staff
greets extreme, sometimes violent behavior with only consolation and
gentle restraint. Kim Longinotto’s unblinking camera captures an
arduous process and a nearly unhinged environment, but it also records
the daily dramas of troubled kids trying to survive and the moments of
hope they achieve with Mulberry’s clear-eyed staff.

We hope you will help us spread word about the national broadcast of
the film. There are several ways you can do this:

Host a sneak preview screening and discussion of this year’s film.
Apply online:http://www.amdoc.org/outreach/events/register.php
P.O.V. compiles free discussion guides, lesson plans, as well as other
companion material that will be made available online.

Include information on your website. Post an ad and/or blurb on your
organization’s website or blog, announcing the broadcast of the film.
You can download the banner ad from our online Pressroom or embed the
film’s trailer: http://www.amdoc.org/pressroom_pov2009.php)

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions.

If you are interested in participating in one or several of the above
activities, please contact Jessica Lee in the Community Engagement and
Outreach Department at P.O.V., (212) 989-8121 x315, or by email atjlee@pov.org.

Best,

Abigail Huston
Community Engagement and Outreach
American Documentary | P.O.V.

Given the growing influence of the International Baccalaureate and IB Film, you may be interested in the wiki constructed by my colleague and I, which contains both sections on Media Studies and Film Studies.

Hopefully you won’t consider this spam, but we run preview screenings of movies in the UK (yes some hollywood but also a lot of independent movies) and we’ve just launched our new website.

Anybody can sign sign up to receive invitations to film previews. However, anybody writing about film, should sign up via this quick link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9XHLR3C to get access to previews and early updates on film information and materials.

Hello,
My name is Sandrine Brichon and I am the new head of the communications departmen for the ASIEXPO association, in Lyon. (FRANCE)
In order to improve communication and dialogue between our association and the medias, I wish to update the adress book we have now.

I am therefore contacting you to check the information we have concerning your company.
If some informations are inaccurate or missing, would it be possible for you to send us the new ones by answering this email?

“MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN — THE FANTASTIC CINEMA OF ISHIRO HONDA” by Peter H. Brothers.

For the first time in America, a book has been published on Japan’s foremost director of Fantasy Films: MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN – The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda.

Known primarily for directing such classic Japanese monster movies as Rodan, Mothra, Attack of the Mushroom People and the original Godzilla, Honda has been a much-overlooked figure in mainstream international cinema.

MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN is the first book to cover in English print Honda’s life as well comprehensively evaluates all 25 of his fantasy films. It is also gives objective and critical analysis of Honda’s filmmaking methods, themes and relationships with actors and technicians.

Making use of extensive interviews from Honda’s colleagues, as well as a wealth of original source material never before gathered into one volume (including previously-unpublished essays), MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN is an affectionate tribute to the most-prolific and influential director in the history of fantasy films.

Hello. How are you?
I’m Jun Bae Foreign Press Coordinator and Publicist for Pusan International Film Festival(PIFF).
We’d like to invite you to 2010 Pusan International Film Festival!
Pusan International Film Festival, held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. Started in 1996, for past 15 years the festival has become an enchanting window to the magnificent world of Asian cinema. From October 7th to 15th, 2010 The 15th Pusan International Film Festival will be held. It is not just a film festival where many movies are introduced to the audience, but it is the film festival where Asian countries and others tie their cultural, artistic, and filmic relations; people from all over the world enjoy festivity through films; promising prospective directors come together to show their talents; and many producers and buyers find jewels to invest and sponsor. (Please refer to our official website: http://www.piff.org) Our various programs within the festival such as Asian Film Market and Pusan promotion Plan build up the popularity and nobility of the festival.
We’d like to have your attention to our festival.
[Please do come to Pusan, South Korea if you can or please visit our website and watch what is going on in the cinema paradiso of PIFF]
You will be able to see prominent status of Asian cinema and celebration of cinephiles from all over the world with your own eyes at the 15th Pusan International Film Festival.
We would really appreciate your visit to Pusan International Film Festival. We can guarantee that you will have fun, amazing experience with great films, meet many various cine-people and possibility of publicizing your experience through your articles.
Thank you for your time.
Hope to see you in Pusan!
If you have any questions or concerns please contact me, Jun Bae foreignpress@piff.org
Sincerely,
Jun Bae

Sorry, Oliver. I tried your survey but I don’t think it is suitable to recommend on our blog. I couldn’t answer several of the questions properly because of the limited range of options and I’m afraid some of the questions seemed just plain silly.

If you would like to be included in this section, please let me know asap and I’ll send over more information. All we ask in return is that you include a link to our site (a logo inclusion would be great) on your own website if you have a section available.

In addition (or if you don’t have a links page), if you can give our recent relaunch a plug somewhere (via social networking sites facebook or twitter, or in any newsletters you may produce) that would be really appreciated – we can, of course, do likewise on ours…

Look over my website at http://www.thenedscottarchive.com. This site is devoted to researching and compiling the work of Ned Scott, a Hollywood stillman in the ’30’s and ’40’s. The site is image driven and free of promotional material. Let me know what you think.

As an aside, I arrived at your site by googling “REDES”, a film which Ned Scott photographed in 1934 with Paul Strand and Fred Zinnemann. On your site are posted photographs which are exclusive to Ned Scott’s work, but are not so attributed. I would love to insert an attribution to those photos in some way just so that Ned Scott gets credit.

I noticed that you have posted about one of our films SO HARD TO FORGET which is great! We’d love to inform you more about our releases as we tend to release art house, world cinema and LGBT titles outside of the Hollywood mainstream for UK distribution across theatrical, DVD and VoD formats.

Please get in touch with me and we can think about ways to work together going forward

I am trying to locate Tamil films on DVD – e.g. the original Tamil version of Ratnam’s Roja, but have had no luck. Anything from Madras Talkies seems especially difficult and they no longer have a www site. Have you any suggestions please? Amazon, LoveFilm etc haven’t been able to help so I’m wondering whether there is a lack of distribution to the UK?

Secondly, I’m glad I have found your site – I am a big enthusiast (fan seems the wrong description) of modern and parallel Indian cinema and the cinematographic styles used and I have amassed a large collection (50+) of films… I might be interested in writing some reviews at some point and it would help justifying having so many!

The UK distributor of Tamil titles is Ayngaran (now part of Eros) but they may not have had access to Roja as the Hindi dub tended to dominate international sales I think and Tamil DVDs didn’t really get going until the late 1990s. The UK shop for Ayngaran is here, but I couldn’t find Roja, only the more recent Mani Ratnam film (although the 1994 title Thiruda, Thiruda seems to be there). Googling ‘Roja’ seems to suggest that it is only available on YouTube or illegal downloads unless anyone knows differently. Good luck!

Thank you very much – I wondered whether the Hindi dubbed version was effectively the international release.

I might devote part of my private www site to reviews, partly as an exercise in critical writing. I’ve just watched Nanditas Das’ Firaaq and found it very good and the odd debutante director moments don’t detract.

I am working on the publicity for a film by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki called ‘Where do we go now?’ – and wondered if you’d be interested in attending a screening. Would like to send info and connect. Please email me on anjna@mediamoguls.com

Great site — I’ve enjoyed your posts and have learned from them. I’ve begun a project to watch and comment on 100 foreign films in 100 days (“foreign” being, for me, anything in a language other than English). The site is feedmesubtitles.com, and I just posted on the 30th film.

Please let me know if you’d be interested in making a guest post or having some sort of exchange. For instance, we could arrange to make parallel posts about the same film or subject.

We are currently running a short film competition involving Oscar-winning writer Geoffrey Fletcher and thought that, as a website dedicated to movies and especially foreign/independent film, you and your readers may be interested in entering. We’d be delighted if you could pass this along if you do think that your readers would be interested.

To enter, all entrants have to do is read Geoffrey’s short film script (attached and on the website), explain briefly how they see the script brought to life as a film and write some additional lines of dialogue, then submit them on our website by the 18th August 2013 11.59 (GMT). (See the website for full details at: http://www.imaginationseries.com/en-GB/year2-competition )

Entrants are welcome to enter in their own language as all non-English scripts are professionally translated for the judges.

The most imaginative entries are selected by a prestigious panel, including Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody and Tribeca Film Festival representatives. The five winning scripts will be produced and shown during Tribeca Film Festival with winning entrants flown out to New York with a friend to attend the screening.

This looks like an interesting competition and I’m happy to publish your message. I don’t want to actively promote the website because we don’t support commercial campaigns – i.e. in which commercial sponsors appear prominently.

Dear all. Discovered your wonderful blog site a few months ago and was meaning to send you an email. I am also a film studies teacher and also editor of an online film journal I wanted to bring to your attention because we share a bias toward International and non-mainstream cinemas. The journal is Offscreen the longest running monthly online film journal (since 1997). Unlike most online film magazines and journals that offer the brief review format, Offscreen features extensive interviews, in-depth festival coverages, and lengthy, well-researched essays. There are literally hundreds of essays in the archive. I hope you have some time to peruse it. I’ve added a link to your page. It would be nice if you could do the same (I think we share a readership with common interests). Thanks.

Thanks Donato. I’ve now placed a link to Offscreen in the Film Journals listing on the right sidebar. It certainly looks like an interesting source of academic essays and commentary. I’m always happy to link to Canadian film culture resources and one day I hope to visit Montreal’s world cinema festival.

My name is Andrew Rainnie. I am a writer/director and the founder of Rain Fire Films, a fresh new film production company based in Scotland. We are currently two days into a Kickstarter campaign to raise £15,000 to make a series of short films under the collective title The Illuminant Midnight Project. It is comprised of three shorts, each of which is very different in terms of story, scope, and genre, but linked by one common, universal theme.

I see that, like me, you are a big film fan and that you also support indie filmmaking. Myself and my team would be very grateful if you could help spread the word about our campaign. This could be anything from a simple retweet on twitter, to an interview or guest feature on your blog or website.

At Rain Fire Films we are very passionate about both filmmaking and crowdfunding, and regularly contribute to campaigns. I personally believe it has allowed independent artists such as myself to create beautiful works that would not have been otherwise possible.

Hello. I recently purchased a Japanese film poster with a company logo on the lower right corner that I have not been able to find any information about. Is it possible to post an image to your blog/site and see if any other readers may recognize it? The poster is from about 1960, with vivid WWII artwork.

Dear all,
I am carrying out a research on the ¡viva! Spanish and Latin American Film festival of Manchester and I am struggling to find images of old programme covers. The oldest I have is the cover from the 19th edition in 2013. I was wondering if, by any chance, any of you have the old Cornerhouse programmes of this event and could send me a picture of the front cover. Mainly I am after the ones from the 90s or anything before 2010. I know it started in 1994.
Thank you very much in advance :)
Ciao!
Ania

Hi Ania
If you search back on this site using the tag ¡Viva!, you should see the covers of festival brochures from 2009-15 (except 2010). I may have more brochures in storage somewhere but it would take time to find them. Why not approach HOME direct? Might be best to wait until May though as they are a bit busy with the festival right now. If I turn up any older brochures I’ll let you know.

Hello ! I have just read on your blog, ” The Case For Global Film” that a Blu Ray was available of the 1957 film ” WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN”. I can’t seem to find any trace of it on the internet, except the ordinary dvd. of the film. I would really like to buy it. Can you help ? Many thanks.

I’m sorry Peter, I must have made a mistake. Back in 2012 I was under the misapprehension that ‘new’ packages of archive films with significant extras would be coming out on both DVD and Blu-ray if there was a new 2K/4K DCP. I now realise that was far too optimistic and that the Blu-ray market seems to now be only mainstream films and archive from specialist labels. StudioCanal, in my experience, don’t do a great deal to support their film library and I can’t find any trace of a Blu-ray of WIDG either. I’ll alter the posting – thanks for alerting me.

Hello Roy, I was directed here by Keith Withall, who I bumped into at the recent screening of Jane Eyre at the Picturehouse in Bradford. What a fantastic film resource and body of work this is – I’m very glad to see film education is still alive and kicking in Bradford. I’m hoping to set up a new school film club and will certainly alert any serious film fans to this site. Keep up the excellent work! Shabanah Fazal

Hello. Let me introduce the new project that comes from Latvia. Genre: experimental / art-house (including all the kind of genres that are in it). Actually, «†he Call» is about the way we see communication — with a various range of emotions, desires, temperaments and talents of the young gipsy citizens >>> https://vimeo.com/194695375

Unfortunately, English subtitles are not available (but I think the images tell the story, based on the above synopsis). Hope you will enjoy the watching!
– – –
best regards, Max ⓥ (director, editor, cinematographer, writer etc.)

I am searching for a restored copy of the 1965 film “The Party’s Over”. BFI has produced a flip side DVD/ Blue Ray of this movie. When I read the description it implied that it can be played in The USA . No matter who the seller, every time I tried to order it Amazon wrote “Sorry this can not be shipped to the USA”. Why is this the case and how can I get my hands on this treasure? One other question, is the film “A Clash of Loyalties” available for viewing in region 1 and if so were can I buy this dvd?

BFI DVD/Blu-ray discs may be Region 2 only. My ‘Flipside’ disc (not your film) doesn’t specify a region code.
The only reason I can think that would prevent an export to the US is a rights issue, but the shop should be able to tell you.

Re A Clash of Loyalties, I assume this is the Iraqi film with Oliver Reed, Al-mas’ Ala Al-Kubra? The only thing I can suggest is to contact Arabic language DVD sellers such as https://www.arabfilm.com/contact.html There are many such companies available online.

Hi there, I’m the art director of a small custom magazine based in Seattle. We are looking to feature one of the movies reviewed here (Ushpizin) in our arts calendar next month. I was curious to know about the image that you have posted with the review. Do you know who owns the rights and how I can contact them to inquire about permissions?

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(I discovered this in a pile of unpublished posts. I’m posting it now as a tribute to Mikael Nykvist who died ridiculously young (of lung cancer) at 56 in June 2017. I also note that a second ‘follow up’ title … Continue reading →

MUBI has recently included several films by the Chinese auteur Lou Ye as part of its rolling monthly programme. They titled their mini-season of Lou’s films ‘Freedom and Defiance: The Cinema of Lou Ye’. Lou Ye (born 1965) made his … Continue reading →

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